Raising more than $250,000 in 4 weeks!
In June, The Boone Family Foundation issued a $25,000 challenge grant to KIPP TRUTH Academy: raise $50,000 by July 12 (30 days) and they would give us $25,000. Not only did we raise $50,000, we are thrilled to announce we received more than $68,000 in cash and pledges! Thank you to everyone who helped us meet this incredible opportunity; we saw many new donors participate, and even received coins and money orders from community members and families, to help in our efforts. I want to thank Dallas Social Venture Partners for their help initiating and leveraging this challenge.
We wrapped up our fiscal year June 30, and inspired by the incredible outpouring of support for the Boone Family Foundation challenge, three other foundations awarded grant requests totaling $158,000. Their generosity helped us close out our fiscal year on a good note! Terrific!
Now that’s not to say we don’t still need help funding the upcoming school year. However, this note is about celebrating our success and the momentum has helped to kick off our new fiscal year with a big bang!
There are lots of “bangs” here at school as construction crews are busily finishing the school’s expansion, opening 8 new classrooms, a media lab, and science lab for this school year. Watch for invitations to celebrate our new space at an upcoming open house later this Fall.
I wanted to share this outcome with all of you and encourage you to share this news with others. It’s a real testament to the belief in our mission to transform the lives of all our students. As we say at KIPP TRUTH, “expect more than others think is possible.” That’s what your outpouring of support showed to our kids and our community. We showed our students what’s possible when everyone supports their neighbors to reach a common goal. And, with your support, we will continue to live this motto. Thank you!
April Crosse
Executive Director
KIPP TRUTH ACADEMY AND DALLAS SOCIAL VENTURE PARTNERS ANNOUNCE COMMUNITY CHALLENGE GRANT
Nationally Recognized Charter School is beneficiary of collaborative funding effort to expand the reach throughout North Texas
DALLAS – June 29, 2010 – While most DFW middle-school students (and their teachers) are enjoying summer vacation, the team from South Dallas’ KIPP TRUTH Academy are already thinking about the upcoming school year. That’s because they are working hard to raise the remaining $35,000 of a $50,000 community challenge grant issued by the Boone Family Foundation.
The challenge was announced at a recent social innovation event hosted by Dallas Social Venture Partners (DSVP). As one of DSVP’s newest nonprofit Investees, several DSVP partners “pitched” on behalf of KIPP TRUTH Academy to “sell” the importance of building their capacity to serve more kids throughout North Texas. DSVP partners described their strategic work at KIPP as helping to strengthen their business model and prepare for regional expansion of KIPP’s impact. Boone Family Foundation took the lead in this vision, by issuing a thirty day challenge grant to help build awareness of KIPP’s efforts, grow their donor base, and encourage further capacity building to help them grow. From now until July 12, the Boone Family Foundation will give $1 (up to $25,000) to the nationally recognized charter school for every $2 it raises from the community, making the total potential contribution to KIPP TRUTH $75,000.
KIPP and DSVP partners are working together to attract the matching dollars.
“We believe in the power of leverage,” said Stacy Caldwell, President of DSVP. “When funders and donors work collaboratively around a project they believe in, the potential benefit to the community is exponential. DSVP is proud to help collaborate in this effort and work with KIPP to advance its vision for growth.”
Founded in 2003, KIPP TRUTH Academy is the Metroplex branch of the nationally renowned Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP). KIPP is a network of charter schools designed to transform and improve the educational opportunities available to low-income families, and ultimately, prepare students to enroll and succeed in college. KIPP has grown from a core of two middle schools established in the mid 1990s to a nationwide network of 82 schools in 19 states and the District of Columbia. All KIPP schools are free, open-enrollment, college-preparatory public schools located in under-resourced communities throughout the United States.
“This campaign is vital to the future of KIPP in Dallas/Ft. Worth,” said Bill Gedwed, Chairman of the Board of KIPP TRUTH Academy. “With these and other donations, we can build our current capacity and expand the reach of KIPP throughout the region – bringing proven and much-needed educational opportunities to thousands of underserved kids in our community.”
The launch of this campaign coincides with a landmark report issued June 22 by Mathematica, a nonpartisan research firm that examined demographic and achievement data from students in 22 KIPP schools in 14 school districts. (Download the full report at www.kipp.org/mathematica) Key findings from the research show that most students enter KIPP with lower test scores than their peers in local district schools. And yet, within two years of entering KIPP, students experience statistically significant, positive gains in math and reading. In addition, academic gains at many KIPP schools are large enough to substantially reduce race and income-based achievement gaps.
Donors and Funders around the country are looking at the charter school model as an innovation in the education system. Boone Family Foundation, Dallas Social Venture Partners and KIPP TRUTH Academy are anxious to accelerate this positive impact and are seeking additional grants and donations to help meet this challenge.
For more information about KIPP TRUTH or to contribute, visit www.kipptruth.org or call 214-302-4505.